I tried the SIBO diet with Paleo Dietitian Aglaee Jacobs and while it did work I found the longer I was on it the worse I looked, I mean I didn’t look healthy so I think I was missing some key nutrients.. probably because of the lack of mix in veggies and probably not enough iron, two things I find hard to get enough of. I have found another book that I’m reading right now and once I’m done I will try out. It’s called the Paleo approach written by Sarah Ballantyne. Reverse autoimmnue disease and heal your body.

I have long suspected that a variety of my health problems are all related to autoimmune disease for example gluten intolerance – though I suspect celiac disease, vulvodynia/vestibulodynia, low blood platelets (thrombocytopenia) and a few deficiencies such as low iron. Irritable bowel (IBS) I was diagnosed with which I think is actually a few intolerances all wrapped into one. I have managed my IBS by staying away from most grains and dairy.

When I eat gluten I get pimples and welts under my skin, on my head(head gets itchy) and I get head aches(usually the following day). My gums start to swell and get red and bleed, sugar also causes me a few of these problems as well as bladder/urinary tract/yeast infections. Both sugar and gluten cause my vulvodynia to worsen. I also have a variety of other foods that I eat and cause me to feel bloated including dairy(lactose and casein flares my IBS) bananas and potatoes(both white and sweet) cause bloating.

This to me sounds like my immune system is fighting off things it shouldn’t be fighting off, it’s thinking that these foods are intruders, bad things that my immune system attacks when it enters my body. I have suspected SIBO and though it seems much better since my SIBO diet I tried a year ago. I did hemocode intolerance test through rexall pharmacy after doing the SIBO diet (should have done it before). The SIBO diet really limited the foods I could eat and also the nutrience I was getting. I found it hard to figure out what I should introduce back into my diet. I had no clue where to start and got frustrated and just went back to the way I was eating before rather than trying to continue. I am actually still reading Aglaee’s book – Digestive Health with real food but I wanted to go a bit further than this and try to learn more about the effect of nutrition and auto immune disease. I think all my problems are linked to this. Since through my research it all seems to link to this conclusion.

I believe it all started with an infection in 2004 – tuberculosis. Following 9 months of very strong medication. While taking the medication I started having problems – urinary tract infection/yeast infection. I was taking medication to help with the infections every couple months while I was also taking the medication for tuberculosis. Now I wish I hadn’t.

Since then I had to stop taking birth control pills which seemed to worsen my vulvodynia almost immediately when I start taking them. (it took 2 years and numerous doctors to get the vulvodynia diagnosis) I believe not only did i screw up my hormones from years of using the pill I also screwed up my immune system while fighting tuberculosis and taking round after round of medication to get rid of what I thought was infections but likely was SIBO and intolerances to food I had developed.

I’m still figuring all this stuff out almost 10 years later, I went gluten free, then paleo. When I was pregnant I found it incredibly difficult to stick to the paleo diet. My stomach turned at the thought of meat and veggies, I couldn’t stomach most paleo foods, coconut oil/milk, nuts and seeds and since then I have been struggling to get back into eating more paleo, getting away from sugar and gluten that seems to creep back into my diet now and then.

I’m one of those people who when stressed eats and this past year has been the most stressful year ever, things are now getting back on track and I’m looking to get my health back on track as well. It’s a struggle and anyone who is going through the same thing or something similar would agree, it’s not even the least bit easy. I’m taking it day by day, learning and trying to find the energy to make a plan to get my health back to what it was before my pregnancy. A few notes I’d like to mention:

– While getting the IBS diagnonis, my doctors told me my symptoms were all in my head – until the IBS diagnosis

– While getting the vulvodynia diagnosis, my doctors told me it was all in my head. It also took 5 years to get this diagnonsis – which up until the diagnosis I was getting regular prescriptions for yeast/UTI/bladder infections

All my symptoms – so far – for all my health problems aside from low blood platelet levels I have managed to improve from changing to the paleo and sibo diet. I am heading back in this direction and am hoping that the autoimmune protocol will help me as well with the low blood platelet/easy bruising and shins that look like I have been kicked a million times. My gums bleed easily and my shins just never seem to heal. I get a bruise and it still looks like my bruise is there years later. Oddly enough if I get a cut, needle or anything that draws blood I don’t bleed for very long, barely at all. When I had my appendix taken out – which I think is related to my gluten intolerance/celiac – I was told they had a hard time diagnosing my appendicitis because of my low white blood cell count, typically if you have appendicitis you have high white blood cell count because your body is fighting off the infection, you also usually have a fever, which I didn’t. Though I rarely get sick and when I do it doesn’t last very long…so the low white blood cell count seems weird as well as low blood platelets. (something I need to research further)